Google VP says Apple v Samsung verdict was a “wake-up call”

The company will more aggressively protect its intellectual property.

Google Vice President for Corporate Development David Lawee believes Apple's win against Samsung in a federal district court last month was a "wake-up call." It appears that the search giant will become more aggressive in patenting its own technologies in an effort to avoid a "thermonuclear world."

"I'm hoping that we're kinda over the hump in terms of how people value patents, and the 'thermonuclear' world is not the world we're going to live in," Lawee told Bloomberg TV on Tuesday, referring to Steve Jobs' promise to go "thermonuclear" on Android over the belief that Google ripped off the iPhone. Lawee suggested that prior to the current smartphone wars raging in courts around the world, Google didn't appreciate the value of patents, and didn't build up a "sufficient" portfolio.

"We actually didn't invest in the patent ecosystem," Lawee said. "We weren't patenting things as aggressively as we should have been. We didn't really believe 'rounded corners' were patentable. We just didn't buy into that notion of protecting your IP, and it was a wake-up call."

198 Reader Comments

*smacks the Google VP over the head with a god damn bat* NOW ITS A WAKE UP CALL!?! I swear Google is run by a bunch of idiots who just like playing with geeky toys. The business side is just an inconvenience to play engineer.

This is such a crappy sign of things to come... clogging up the courts for years to come because the coefficient of friction of your glass material was patented by Apple back in the day. So freaking stupid.

This is such a crappy sign of things to come... clogging up the courts for years to come because the coefficient of friction of your glass material was patented by Apple back in the day. So freaking stupid.

Google and Apple look to be following in the Cold War's footsteps. Mutually Assured Destruction is now the only gameplan, meaning Google will be on the hunt for patents as protection against Apple.

Lawee's comment, if truly indicative of Google's thinking, is an admission that Google doesn't value patents IN GENERAL, theirs or anybody else's. It is consistent with their attitude that whatever is in the USPTO database can be ignored if they feel like it. But you know, just because you don't like the law doesn't mean you can ignore it. You can try to change it, but you can't choose to violate it and then play the victim when you are caught. How would Lawee feel if some homeless people decided to set up a tent city on his lawn because hey it didn't look like he was using it and such big lawns should be open access like parks and it was mean of him to buy all that land and not let others use it.

Lawee's comment, if truly indicative of Google's thinking, is an admission that Google doesn't value patents IN GENERAL, theirs or anybody else's. It is consistent with their attitude that whatever is in the USPTO database can be ignored if they feel like it. But you know, just because you don't like the law doesn't mean you can ignore it. You can try to change it, but you can't choose to violate it and then play the victim when you are caught. How would Lawee feel if some homeless people decided to set up a tent city on his lawn because hey it didn't look like he was using it and such big lawns should be open access like parks and it was mean of him to buy all that land and not let others use it.

I don't see it that way. I see it as them realizing that the most asinine shit can get patented, and then wielded like a gun to rob someone.

If that's the kind of stuff clogging up the patent office db, then we're in serious trouble. It's not even "chicken glasses" funny. It's just sad.

edit:

What I worry about now is how industries may avoid standardizations which could help consumers, b/c they're patenting dumb things and trying to sue each other over using the same useful technologies, UI's, etc.

Imagine making an OS today if someone patented using a mouse cursor to click on icons. You couldn't use one of the most natural, standardized interfaces we have today. You'd have to reinvent the wheel. And, history has shown, that most folks want to use things that the major product already uses.

EG: MS Office set a lot of standards in what folks expect from a word processor, spreadsheet program, etc. There's a reason lots of other programs simulate those standards. There's a reason programs that DON'T simulate those standards don't do well... folks don't want to relearn something to do the same thing. They don't want to have to go through some new, convoluted method to save a file just b/c some douche company has patented "File > Save As..." or the "Disk" icon.

Love that their takeaway was "Oh, we need to more aggressively patent stuff."

How about: "Hey, maybe we should attempt to be minimally original in our products."

No, more correctly, "Apple's going to throw patents at the office like spaghetti at a wall to see what sticks, then sue the shit out of anyone who does anything vaguely similar, regardless of how obvious the patented feature is or what prior art exists."

Ironmetal -- it already is. (an acceptance, not the patented part) Even if you never even see the ToS, if you see the software in use, you've already accepted.

What if you're simply watching someone else use their phone? That was the ridiculous scenario I envisioned. Or is letting someone watch you play considered an illegal rebroadcast, and the FBI will come knocking on your door?

I wish there was some controversy over what Samsung has done, instead the issue seems to be split between Apple supports and the Samsung supports who simply think Patents shouldn't exist.

I'm not a fan of what Apple did, or the net results, but neither am I a fan of the idea a company, any company, can blatantly rip off someones ideas and implementation and pretend it didn't happen. Nor am I a fan of a particular group of companies who have colluded to prevent other companies from entering the mobile phone business. (This applies to all the companies that were refusing to licenses FRAND based patents on realistic terms; as is a requirement of the patent pool in the first place).

Google didn't patent because they did not care if you copied them. They liked the open source idea. But with evil companies like apple out there, now they have waste money on creating and buying patents for even the stupid things like rounded corners, and antenna location.

Again, the only ones who win under this idiotic system are the lawyers. And as stupid as it clearly is, I have little faith that patent law (as well as copyright law) will ever be reformed in meaningful ways. We will continue to go down the path of ever increasing IP complexity and ever increasing litigiousness.

Apple'$ play at patenting rounded corners, of squares as icons, etc. Will ruin the tech world, and turn it into 'magic consumer boxes' Innovation has already stopped at Apple, this lawsuit is another indication.

Patents, need to apply to real world solutions. A look might be a trade mark, but not a patent.

If anything, in this case samsung infringed on looking too similar, not in any real technical detail.

this should have been a trademark case, then thrown out because they didn't actually use their logo.

Its like Paul Mitchel, suing Joico (hair products) for making blonde hair dye. OMG its just as blonde as ours!!!!!! I can't believe that bitch copied you, OMG me either. OMG sue.

This is apples argument. Calling it a wake up call, imo, is like hearing that gorilla's are sending one of their own to the moon. Quite a wake up call, when a court rules that the moon 'belongs to gorillas' cause they're the latest to patent the way of getting there.

None of this should come as a shock when the patent system allows for specific genes in the human body to be patented. 'Rounded corners' are clearly the next logical step up from there.

Nah, the next logical step is the expression of that gene. So if you have a baby with blonde hair, and didn't license that gene, or have blonde hair yourself, expect to be sued for patent infringement. One count for each case of cellular division.

Love that their takeaway was "Oh, we need to more aggressively patent stuff."

How about: "Hey, maybe we should attempt to be minimally original in our products."

Because that shows a profound misunderstanding of the current patent crisis. All software and hardware design is iterative (hell, most hardware is made of the same pieces, put together in the same factories), so unless you have enough patents to force patent bullies like Apple to back down, you are going to lose.

*smacks the Google VP over the head with a god damn bat* NOW ITS A WAKE UP CALL!?! I swear Google is run by a bunch of idiots who just like playing with geeky toys. The business side is just an inconvenience to play engineer.

Not as many of us like the stereotypical business side of it though (and is part of the reason Google does well in PR).

Arlondiluthel wrote:

RankApe wrote:

So now Google is pledging to be more evil.

Wrong. Google is pledging to make Android more defensible in the face of whatever the next batch of bulls*** Apple decides to cook up against them.

I see the two as somewhat interrelated for better or worse. Whether or not they have any reasonable alternatives is another story.

Well better late than never. And then Google should license all their patents for 1 dollar when people want to us it. Not 1 dollar pr device, but 1 dollar in total, forever.Unless its Apple, they have to pay a license of 500$ pr device.

Oh look at the geeks getting distracted by Lawee's shiny flamebait. "rounded corners" were not patented, the design of the iPad and iPhone as a whole were. That's what a design patent is - you can't make something that looks substantially the same as the thing patented, for the period of the patent. That's why I can't hire some factory in China to start cranking out "Prada" sunglasses, and start selling them for $10 a pair.

Samsung could have avoided their verdict by making a handful of modifications, so their tablet didn't look IDENTICAL to the iPad. Apple even advised Samsung how to arrive at a design that didn't infringe their design patent. Samsung's attitude was "go ahead and sue us", and they got what they asked for.

I find it hilarious that even Google is repeating the rounded corners were patented meme. Considering how it is just a fictional creation of message boards I sincerely hope for Google's sake that that is not based on actual legal advice.

What I worry about now is how industries may avoid standardizations which could help consumers, b/c they're patenting dumb things and trying to sue each other over using the same useful technologies, UI's, etc.

Imagine making an OS today if someone patented using a mouse cursor to click on icons. You couldn't use one of the most natural, standardized interfaces we have today. You'd have to reinvent the wheel. And, history has shown, that most folks want to use things that the major product already uses.

That's a huge leap of logic. Someone saying "We plan to get hundreds of thousands of patents for every little thing we can think of" does not mean they're going to sue everyone. That's your assumption. They could just use it in a counter suit for anyone that thinks they're going to sue you for something small. Or you cross-license stuff.

Love that their takeaway was "Oh, we need to more aggressively patent stuff."

How about: "Hey, maybe we should attempt to be minimally original in our products."

No, more correctly, "Apple's going to throw patents at the office like spaghetti at a wall to see what sticks, then sue the shit out of anyone who does anything vaguely similar, regardless of how obvious the patented feature is or what prior art exists."